A stack of emails released as part of the ongoing legal action between Activision and Call of Duty's creators have turned up some hilariously catty exchanges and contingency plans coming from the publisher's top brass.

Posted over on the LA Times, a 2009 email from Activision's president of publishing, Mike Griffith, mentions a plan to reward the top 12 members of Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward other than heads Jason West and Vincent Zampella, "to help ensure we retain the team if things blow up at the top. As you know, this has been a difficult relationship."

Another exchange mentions the fact that, when asked by Grifith to provide a live gameplay demonstration of what would have been Modern Warfare 2, West and Zampella apparently hung up on the Activision executive.

When informed of this, Activision boss Bobby Kotick replied "If they really did I would change their locks and lock them out of their building."